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Archive for the ‘Guests on The Infra Blog’ Category

Our systems and services in infrastructure are pretty compromised right now, especially in areas that have been subject to extreme weather events. But even if they haven’t, we’ve got a lot of infrastructure that, frankly, is falling apart. We haven’t done a good job of maintaining it, and we don’t have enough resources to maintain or resuscitate that infrastructure. So the reason this is important is because it creates a path for being able to address that issue. To create the type of infrastructure that we need to provide energy security, safe drinking water, reliable transportation, all the services and needs we have from our day to day infrastructure that we aren’t receiving right now through our public sector.

“There really is no conflict between saying you would like to have more infrastructure investment and saying that you’re an environmentalist. They’re one and the same. The challenge is that the plans and projects that are on the books in many states run counter to what we need in our communities to protect people. And that’s where we need to take a hard look at what kind of infrastructure we’re investing in, because the same-old, same-old as we just saw through these two big storms isn’t going to get us there.”

If there is a change in the direction at the federal level, that means it’s all the more important that we at our individual and at our state and our county levels, make sure we are doing more to step up our engagement. We see examples from different mayors and different cities who are being quite proactive on the climate issue, and corporations are stepping forward, and so we have to focus on where there’s positive momentum and support that moving forward.

In the past you had to be physically here to damage something, but in today’s connected world there are people who want to do us harm, and that harm in the 21st century doesn’t necessarily come via an army or a ship or a tank, it comes through electronic warfare, through cyber warfare. Europe has been experiencing that with ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and elsewhere called asymmetric or hybrid warfare, and it’s something that we ought to be talking about in the same sentence that we mention “Smart Grid” or any other type of smart technology.

“We just held a rally here in DC with all of the organizations within the water sector to get that point to legislators, to bring it to senators and members of the House…They heard that message, it resonated, it resounded, but until it really does start to come from the people, and it becomes a citizen-based question and a ratepayer-based issue, we’re not going to see that traction develop…The question becomes: how many Sandys, Katrinas, Flints, Toledos does it take for the federal government to ultimately realize this isn’t a local issue and it’s not a one-off issue? Preserving these water and wastewater systems is a vital, national need.”

“These public-private partnerships that they tout really don’t work. We tried that in downtown Las Vegas to do the new Project Neon, and just couldn’t generate enough revenue from the private sector, so we know that is not the “silver bullet.” I’m opposed to privatizing government services, because then the priority shifts from service to profit, and that never works. If you talk about something like air traffic control, that’s especially egregious because we have the safest system there is; we’re going to now undermine that.”

“I commend the Administration for talking about a trillion dollars, but right now they’re only talking about putting $200 billion of public money up and the rest coming from other sources in the private sector. And while there’ve been some successes of that in this country as well as overseas, I don’t think we can afford to wait for a financing program to fully mature before we make significant infrastructure investments. It has to be done now; the federal government has to recognize that they need to spend this money. They can’t continue to hold the dollars hostage going forward.”

“We’re seeing, over the course of my career, the last 30-plus years, a significant improvement in the public’s understanding of the state of our infrastructure. Does it accelerate that understanding when we have some significant, real and perceived, failures of systems? I think it does. It’s unfortunate that that has to occur to help educate, but when that does happen we’re offered a unique opportunity to expand on the work that’s done…My opinion is continued education and communication on the importance and value of infrastructure is critically important, and we can do that by engaging more people in the infrastructure discussion.”

“There is an incredible need to educate. One of the big frustrations in our freight rail industry is that people do not appreciate the importance of freight and don’t realize that we are—along with the trucking industry and along with the barge and towing industry—critical to the nation’s economy. People just seem to think about freight railroads when they’re sitting, watching it go by, and being frustrated that the gate is down at a grade crossing. It is, from a public policy standpoint, critical that Congress and the Administration will recognize the importance of freight.”

“Interesting fact: two thirds of the people that used to travel between Washington and New York used to travel by the shuttle, by air, and a third by rail; and now the numbers are reversed: it’s two thirds by Amtrak or other regional rail and a third by air, and I think that speaks to the resurgence in rail. And I think also increasing numbers of travelers are interested in being responsible commuters, whether it’s a trip across the Hudson or a trip to Washington, and I think that influences their choice of commute and travel as well.”

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